


Finding One's Own Truth

by AnAntTM



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Minor Injuries, Post canon, spoiler warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 11:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16062152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAntTM/pseuds/AnAntTM
Summary: After having finally found the original copy of From the Far Reaches of Hell, Professor Cyrus begins to write a journal, detailing his discoveries while reading the accursed tome.His 'greatest' discovery is a chilling premonition of things to come.





	Finding One's Own Truth

Dear Journal,

Salutations old friend, Mr. Journal. It has been quite some time since I found myself having to write in here, so I understand if you do not remember me all that well. My name is Professor Cyrus Albright, and in this journal, I will be describing my findings from a very peculiar and… I hate to use the term lightly, but ‘dangerous’ tome in my possession. I am of course talking about a tome entitled _From the Far Reaches of Hell_ ; it took me almost an arm and a leg to get my hands on this! As such, my mind quivers in anticipation at discerning the truth that lies within these pages.

Well! Enough dilly dallying. Let us get on with the research.

To tell you the truth, I was hesitant to begin reading this tome. After seeing the horrible transformations both Headmaster Yvon and Lucia underwent, a chilling fear crept down my spine. My mind wandered, endless possibilities wracking at me: Would the words written on these pages corrupt me as well? Would I lose sense of myself, consumed by the prospect of having control over life and death itself? I fear that I do not know the answers, nor that I wish to know them. But for the greater good, I must ascertain my own truth among these bloodied pages and put myself at risk. After all, I have been told I am a ‘true seeker of knowledge.’

For starters, the tome has a very archaic writing style; the letters are scratchy, almost like a child’s scribbles. Though it does bear a striking resemblance to High Hornburgian; as such, I will use my knowledge with the language to decipher the text. This is my translator’s note warning.

 _From the Far Reaches of Hell_ goes into… rather ‘explicit’ details about a type of necromancy, that I will simply dub as ‘blood magic,’ for the sake of simplicity of understanding. Blood magic is a form of a dark ritual, said to grant immense powers to the sorcerer who enacted the spell; though this comes at a great cost. The user’s mind is… for better or worse, torn to shreds; all sense of humanity, individuality, and anything moral is stripped away, replaced instead by an almost primal urge to destroy anything in the user’s way. It is very much like the castor has reverted to the time of the Neanderthals and primitive men.

This is rather perplexing to me, as Lucia used this power for the sake of allowing her to learn /more/… although that monstrous, hulking creature that stood before seemed as human as a lizardman in Wellspring. I shudder to think what would have happened had she been allowed to roam the land freely.

  
Although, there is another cost that comes with blood magic and that, as the name might so cleverly imply, comes in the form of live human sacrifice. I apologize for the details, so I will keep them concise. I have bared witness to such horrible atrocities; a necromancer had his victims scrawled out against a wooden cross, their bodies laid bare and naked. Deep, cut marks were all over their torso, and neck. They are… ‘drained,’ for a lack of a better word, of their blood upon a strange, red symbol in the middle of the floor. I will dub this symbol ‘the Mark.’ This will likely become important as we continue further.

The blood ritual will then proceed a synthesized ‘blood crystal,’ as I heard them referred to as. These crystals, having been ‘blessed,’ or rather ‘cursed,’ by dark magic will grant the castor the aforementioned immense power. However, it seems that there is a ‘purity’ scale wit which these crystals are subject to; the ‘purity’ of a crystal affects the power it grants the user. In certain cases, as what happened with the Headmaster, an impure, or ‘low purity,’ blood crystal while still horribly transfiguring someone’s body and mind, will only grant them a mere fraction of the crystal’s true power. No matter the level of purity from every crystal, the true cost lies in the castor: death /will/ come to those who use the crystals to escape, or even /control/ death itself. After a long, arduous battle with two blood crystal users, the two both disintegrated and faded away. What a pitiful end to such brilliant minds.

Then again, all knowledge must come at a price. I am a strong believer in the idea that knowledge itself cannot be inherently good or evil; all that matters are the intentions behind the person who would use this knowledge. I will return to this point.

I have touched upon it briefly, but I would like to address another effect of the blood crystals: extended life. It seems that, should the afflicted subject survive on its own, it will live longer than a human; the average human will live about 60 to 70 years, should they remain in a healthy condition, exercise, have a consistent diet, and take utmost care of themselves. The average… I will dub them ‘Eldians,’ as they bear a striking resemblance to a mural I bore witness to in the Ruins of Eld, will live about 140 up to 160 years. While this is not the ‘immortality’ that Lucia seemed to be implying, it is certainly nothing to ignore; they leave more than /double/ our life span.

It is almost as if, through the repeated use of blood crystals, the ‘Eldians’ will further and further expand their lifespan. Though, as aforementioned, this comes with the cost of a loss of humanity. I believe this power to be unholy and unjust, like a forbidden fruit that we as humans must never covet. It is not our place to escape death, as it is simply a natural part of life.

The very notion is, as stated, /unholy! / … But I believe that is the original writer’s intentions behind this tome. The knowledge written across these pages, the secrets that lie within this leathery book, were not written with good intentions in mind. I know I have stated that knowledge is neither good nor evil, but please let me explain myself. I would argue that these words were written by a cultist, to bring back this power over life and death that was “sealed away by the Twelve Gods themselves” ( _Trial of the Twelve, Volume VII ).  
_

But there must simply be a bigger picture here! In fact, I believe there is. ‘The Mark,’ the ‘Eldians,’ the mural, and multiple texts describing forbidden things that the gods sealed away “beyond the edge of this world. But what exactly /is/ that power? The question boggled my mind for what seemed like an eternity… but then it all clicked with me.

I have made several references to a mural, and I feel as if I should explain myself. Deep in the Ruins of Eld, just close by to Lucia’s secret library and the heart of the sanctuary, there lies a mural depicting a creature that has a vaguely reptilian shape. At first, I dismissed this as some ancient civilization witnessing an early ancestor of the lizardmen and either fearing or revering them as some sort of god. But then, after having read From the Far Reaches of Hell , Trial of the Twelve (Volume VII) , and Forbidden Gold , along with a dictionary of High Hornburgian, I was equipped with enough knowledge and context clues to decipher the message. I will now transcribe it below: _  
_

_**“DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION**  
_

_**DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION**  
_

_**DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION DEATH DOOM DESTRUCTION”**  
_

Quite a chipper people these must have been! But, all jests aside, I have come to interpret this as… a warning. A warning for the dark, impending dangers the world may face should this book, no, this /knowledge/ fall into malicious hands! These tomes describe the ultimate power of life and death itself. A power the Gods purposefully sealed away at the /edge/ of the world… and that’s /exactly/ when it hit me.

Ponder this idea of mine, if you will: there is a strange warning left, telling future civilizations to stray away from forbidden powers. Now, answer me this question: how many founding Gods of Orsterra are there? Twelve? That is most certainly a good guess, for one who isn’t as well learned as a scholar. There are tales of a Thirteenth God. This God was said to have rebelled against the Twelve others, to seize their power for his own. The tales differ from source to source on which God aided Aelfric the Flamebearer in striking this traitorous god down, one thing remains for certain: this God controlled the power of life and death itself.

And where, might you ask, was this God sealed away? Why, none other than the /edge/ of the world… Hornburg itself. From the Far Reaches of Hell is not only talking about ‘blood magic,’ or the ‘art,’ if one could even call it that, of creating perfect ‘Eldians’ or any other nonsense about dark magic… no. It is a warning to something much darker and graver. The tome is warning us about…  


~~Galdera.~~


End file.
